But the Mac Pro was always for a highly niche market. Even the cheapest Intel-based Mac Pro is $6000. And that's with a pretty meager 8-core CPU that gets worse single-core and multi-core Geekbench scores than the M1 Max found in a $2000 Mac Studio.
I wonder if it's just more of a 'it's not where the market is' thing. Working in tech and creative industries even previous to the garbage can there was a dramatic shift in people just opting into laptops instead of desktops. With only the people with really demanding workflows sticking with the desktops. Now I mostly only see mac desktops in video production contexts (editing stations, compositing/effects, 3d.. maybe you'd also see that in high end audio production as well).
As offices have changed over the years with more hot desking etc. it's hard justifying a desktop machine... not to mention the pandemic. So maybe apple made a conscious decision. Keep the mac mini to serve a lower end mostly stationary workforce or for installation type work, kill the whole middle-to-lower-highend desktop line and cater to a high end 'studio' workstation.
The boss blinked and said something along the lines of "we're not spending that kind of money for your system" and I pointed out that with 16gb of ram but otherwise base config, it was about the same price and a much better deal performance-wise than a Macbook Pro. Xeons versus an intel mobile i5, and the widest/fastest memory bus around at the time? No contest.
The water-cooled ones were an absolute shitshow...Apple was pushing the edge too hard on that. AIO coolers are still kinda hit-or-miss (the good, well-made ones are fine.)
That's also because they didn't bother updating it for years. Just like the previous trashcan model.
I don't really understand how Apple gets away with that. The people that spend this kind of money to get top of the line hardware are the same ones that are ok buying 4-year-old hardware at introduction price???
Apple MacBook Pro 13in Core i5 Retina 2.7GHz (MF840LL/A), 8GB Memory, 256GB Solid State Drive (Renewed) $379.99
I wanted a 90's era Powerbook so bad. The 2015 is a great machine in 2022. Over the years I heard the elders say it: buy used on the cycle if you can't afford the newer gen. It's really true. And I rarely hear someone who buys the expensive loaded kit complain, even 10 years later. This is how they get away with it. I think I must have learned Linux attempting to rescue my Windows systems, haha. Now I want to rant about Darwin...
If the M2 Extreme is to the M2 Ultra what the M1 Ultra is to the M1 Max, namely that it's just two chips pasted together, then the M2 Extreme might start with 128 GB of RAM (Max: 32 GB, Ultra: 64 GB). That alone is a $1000+ upgrade to the current Mac Pro.